Theodore Roosevelt presidential library taking shape in North Dakota Badlands
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/08/2023 (1088 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Construction is underway for the Theodore Roosevelt presidential library planned in the Badlands of western North Dakota, where the 26th president hunted and ranched as a young man in the 1880s.
The work began June 15 with removing topsoil for the project’s cut-fill plan. Builders are beginning construction on the library’s east retaining wall, with an initial concrete pour completed Monday, library CEO Ed O’Keefe told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
“If you were to come out on site, you’re seeing a sequence that began with the topsoil, started with the east wing, moves to the west wing and then will move back to the east wing,” he said.
The project is on a 93-acre site near the venue of the popular Medora Musical and the scenic national park that bears Roosevelt’s name. The sale of 90 acres of U.S. Forest Service land for the project was completed last year, costing $81,000 and covered by the Roosevelt family. Congress approved the land sale in 2020.
Total construction will cost about $180 million. Construction will continue through the winter, barring severe weather. “We’re hardy and resilient,” O’Keefe quipped.
“The anticipated pride moment” will be the delivery of mass timber and steel in spring 2024, he said.
“By next summer you’re going to see a very substantial structure on site,” O’Keefe said.
Library organizers are planning a grand opening of the library for July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.
In 2019, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved a $50 million operations endowment for the library, contingent upon its organizers raising $100 million in private donations. They announced that goal being reached in fall 2020.
O’Keefe told the AP the project has “exceeded over $200 million in fundraising and commitments.” Fundraising “doesn’t really ever end,” he said.
The Legislature earlier this year approved a $70 million line of credit through the state-owned Bank of North Dakota for the project, intended as a backstop for beginning construction. Organizers haven’t tapped the line of credit, O’Keefe said.
Oil magnate Harold Hamm, a major player in the state’s Bakken oil field, donated $50 million to the project, announced in January by Republican Gov. Doug Burgum.
Burgum, a wealthy software entrepreneur who is running for president, championed the library proposal in the 2019 session, and donated at least $1 million to the project with his wife, Kathryn.